


Ever Truly - and other drabbles

by ledbythreads



Category: Led Zeppelin, Page and Plant - Fandom
Genre: 1970s, 1990s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternative parenting story time, Angst and Romance, Bisexuality, Bron-Yr-Aur, Canon Universe, Complicated Relationships, Crack Crossover, Drabble Collection, Fatherhood, Gender or Sex Swap, Grief/Mourning, Individual chapter ratings, Jimbert A+ parenting for real, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Long-Distance Relationship, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Old Men Do It Better, Old Men In Love, One True Pairing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recovery, References to Addiction, Reunited and It Feels So Good, True Love, Uncle Nanny Bonzo, Wolverhampton Wanderers, bandfic, chosen family, footie, lovechild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: Led Zeppelin slash - classic drabble (100 words) collection for Writers Month 2020
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Comments: 123
Kudos: 71
Collections: House of Riot for Writers Month 2020, Writer's Month 2020





	1. Ever Truly (can I make your garden grow?)

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 Prompt - Tattooist / Flower shop AU 
> 
> Rating - General

You asked me for peonies. The ink on your forearms like tangled vines. A slight blush across your cheeks like new petals. Your eyes dark like seeds. Only later did I see they were green - when I was close enough to kiss you. 

I lie in your chair as you draw flowers on my skin. I tell you I will never make it permanent, but you love to do it anyway. I am lying. You are already written through me. Indelibly. 

Page and Plant - you design our new sign yourself, the day I knock through the dividing wall between us.


	2. Friends (again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Page/Plant 1994 - Back together again, but can Jimmy risk the old music? Or does Robert still think Zeppelin is contagious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 Prompt - Quarantine  
> rating - general

Being allowed back in your bed was easier than this moment. Letting the old wolf out of his cage. 

I tune open to C6 and your ears prick up. Crescent moon rising. I first played you this song under an old apple tree in Snowdonia. The day after you called me like a dog, and I rolled over to show you my belly. We had only been parted for four months. 

This time my song has been in quarantine for fourteen years. Howling every day to come home. 

You stroke my hackles down. Say ‘Yes honey. Let’s go back there’


	3. Fly away home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bron-yr-Aur 1970

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 prompt - Magic  
> Rating - Mature

You fly the little wooden bird you carved. You swoop it down to kiss her nose and she laughs. She laughs just like you.

You circle the breakfast cups. Play find the birdie.  
‘Gone?’ she asks, lip trembling. ‘Here he is!’ you say ‘Back again!’ Maureen scoops her up.  
‘Say goodbye to Daddy.’  
You press the bird into Maureen’s hand.  
‘Drive safe, baby’ you murmur against her hair.

I fuck you on the cold stone floor of the kitchen. The cups all shattered round us. You plead. Jimmyjimmyjimmy.

I am your dark magician now. I have made your daughter disappear.


	4. Calling to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 prompt - Long distance relationship 
> 
> Rating - General

“Hello”

“Yes?”

“It’s me”

“I know Robert”

“Say something”

“You sound very far away”

“I’m on a cellphone”

“Of course...”

“...”

“Well thank-you for calling. You must be busy. If you will excuse me...”

“You were in my dreams. Jimmy”

“...”

“You. We were. Agadir by the ocean. I”

“...”

“I miss you”

“You don’t know who I am baby. To miss.”

“...”

“...”

“It’s the same su-”

“- No. Don’t do that. I’m not here to receive your recitations from whichever city is boring you tonight. I’m not room service, or your whore, or your analyst...”

“I’m right outside.”

“...”

“Jimmylove?

“Come in, baby. Come home.”


	5. Ten years gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993 - Tower House. London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 prompt - Soulmates
> 
> Rating - Mature

Your hair is grown out. Falling in your face. My boy again.

You pick me up. I’m crying. Shame making me weightless.

You don’t take me upstairs. You take me outside. Stars are slipping out of their orbits. Comets smeared across the sky.

You lay me down in the bower. Honeysuckle. Crushed roses.You rip my clothes because I want you to.I feel the skin across my back tear. Wings of maybe.

You hold my hand to your belly and then push it away.

“Touch yourself” you say “Touch yourself like you do to call me home” “Show me”


	6. Now we’re steady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On This Day - 6 August 1998 JP and RP were at Tom Kenny’s wedding in Cork. This is imagined as them looking out at the sea from the headland before they arrive.
> 
> Day 6 prompt - Ocean  
> Rating - General

“People used to have living wakes when they left Ireland for America. Never expected to see their families again.”

“Weddings always make you wistful baby.”

“Actually they make me horny. Especially if you’re in a suit I can winkle you out of.”

“Did _we_ ever come back? really?”

“Maybe we are always coming home but never for good. I don’t even know who I was then.”

“You were mine”

“I was”

“Do you wish we’d had a big family wedding?”

“Well fine for you to ask now you’re all fixed up again...”

“Do you though, baby?”

“We had the Ocean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re not a nerdy Zephead you might not know the song The Ocean - it’s a reference to their huge wild audiences, a sea of faces, their Ocean. Their witnesses.


	7. Son that lights the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby Noel is learning to walk. Pa is optimistic but there are bound to be mishaps. Part of the ‘Lovechild’ stories where Noel Fielding is Jimmy and Robert’s magical baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 prompt - Hurt/Comfort
> 
> Rating - General (Universal)

“Oopsie daisy, lovely boy”

Robert swings Noel into his arms. Checks him over.

“Dadi” Noel sobs

But Jimmy is furious. Kicking the ground hard with his mary janes. Scowling like a storm over Tampa.

“Fucking gravity. I’ll come with a fucking bulldozer if you try that again, you...”

“Honey, you’re having a feeling” Robert reminds him.

“Am I?”

“You’re feeling protective”

“What can I do?” Jimmy wails “The world is so pointy and full of peril”

“Do hugging”

Jimmy delicately takes Noel, who wraps his spidery arms round his Dadi’s neck. They snuggle. 

“Baby, that’s astonishing! my hurt. It’s melting!”


	8. In The Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1978 - Stockholm - Polar Studios

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 8 prompt - Eight
> 
> Rating - General

Dizzy

at the top

sun

coming

up or down

it is

all

the

same

give me STRENGTH just

a little bit (baby)

longer till this thing

is done

EIGHT

of Swords 8s are

the cards of boundaries and it is essential that Robert

understand a season

to

everything

his

wild

eyed

AUGUST boy

is not helping there are eight

track eight track eight tracks no use hiding in a corner his will must be done on earth as it is in heaven

give us this day

OXYGEN

space to fucking breathe

on the

EIGHTH DAY without sleeping

Page

will rest


	9. Downhill slide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9 prompt - illness  
> 1993
> 
> Rating - General

Jimmy is ice. Beyond furious. But he tidies the styrofoam cups and replenishes the sugar that the others will inevitably be all over like ants. He likes to be useful. To have the table to lean against.

Richard takes four sugars. Jimmy cannot meet his eyes. There are many meetings in London. This invasion is intolerable. Richard pulls his sleeve.

“I’m sorry. Jim, really sorry”

“The eighth step should not cause further harm”

“No. I’m not. I mean I’m not there yet...”

“...”

“But I didn’t tell them about Robert. You and Robert...”

“...”

“It’s an illness. You could not help it”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is imo cannon divergent because AA or NA is anonymous- and so it is a little crass of me to speculate. RC has afaik worked for anti-addiction causes and JP says so little. 
> 
> This drabble is based off JP, incandescent with rage, at either Hammer of The Gods or RC’s own Zeppelin Uncensored bio (which RC had said he sold his stories for, as an addict needing money) JP quips that addiction is meant to be anonymous which made me wonder if he was referencing some bond in AA RC had broken. 
> 
> I use RC as a convenient villain but he was hugely important to Zeppelin and his ambition and talents were not recognised. 
> 
> note: the last line is meant to be ambiguous as to who says it.


	10. ...the day is done.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 10 prompt - bunnies  
> Rating - General  
> 1978

John sees him from the road. A smudge of yellow hair. That old jumper. John pulls in by the gate. The coping on the wall has been redone nicely. That’s something.

Robert has his air rifle over his knees. A brace of rabbits on the ground.

“Bunnies, Rob?” John says. Reaching for them.

“Nah mate, they’re myxied. Leave em.”

They sit awhile, watching the warren.

“Maureen’s pregnant”

“Eh? Congratulations. That’s fantastic.”

“You knew?”

“Yeah”

“You gonna say yes then?”

“I dunno”

“I feel so fucking guilty. For missing it”

“For missing him?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not alright. Without you.”

“I know.”

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Zeppelin lore it was John Bonham who comforted Robert Plant is his mourning for Karac Pendra Plant - and also Bonham that persuaded RP to rehearse again with Zeppelin in May ‘78 and leading to the recording that winter of In Through The Out Door. I didn’t intend to write 1978 but now it keeps twitching its nose at me, so off I go down the rabbit hole.


	11. Never alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11 prompt - Light
> 
> Rating - General
> 
> This is a lovechild story (Where Dadi Jimmy has magically given birth to Noel Fielding Page-Plant and Robert is his Pa and Bonzo is his Uncle-Nanny)

“Dadiiiii” Noel calls plaintively.

“Nowel sez ees afraid of the light”

“But sweetlove. We must keep the cabin illuminated in case of DISASTERS. Lucifer protects you”

“Eee downt believe in Lucifer no more. Some journo told im Lucifer were inventid by Dante. Daft twat.”

“Pa!”

“Gosh. Robert is talking with Lisarobinson about Heaven.”

“Tharts esoteric”

“No John. The gay club. In London?”

“Oh yeah where you and im...”

“John! I’m somewhat foxed. I need guidance.”

“Well gay clubs is moar yore department, Thow I always sez I likes the leathers...”

“No. About Nowel. I mean Noel...”

“Do hugging”

“I have done hugging. He kicked me with his little snek boots. Don’t look at me with distain, he won’t sleep without them.”

“Eee bes not put oles in my bass drum. Yorl have to sing”

“Me?”

“Yes you. You ad that singul. It wernt so bad as will kill im.”

“Very well”

🎶 “ _If you feel that you can’t go on... In. The. Light.“_

“Love you Dadi”

“Love you always, darling”

🎵 “Jimmylove _honey_  
_As you would for me, oh, I would share your load.“_

“Pa!” yawns Noel

“Hush now lovelyboy”

“He’s beautiful when he’s sleeping. Luminous”

“Like his Dadi”

“Like his Pa”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a double drabble because Noel is just too cute and life is short.
> 
> Lyrics from In The Light | Physical Grafitti | Led Zeppelin | 1975


	12. When Jimmy met Percy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 12 prompt - Meet Cute
> 
> Rating - Mature
> 
> 2020

“This scene’s problematic.”

“When we meet?”

“So overblown...”

“That’s the queer gaze, the homoerotic subtext.”

“What-text?”

“Subtext”

“Your florid terminology, Robert. It’s quite unacceptable if they’re proposing to deal with insinuations of personal matters. And wholly unjustified.”

“Honey, I used to beg you to _suck it_ while you crotch fucked me with the Les Paul.”

“Well, our initial encounter was essentially formal.”

“Yet you rushed home for a wank.”

“Actually, I jerked off in the gents”

“But you ‘ _thought I was the roadie’_ .”

“Quite. Your ass was more impressive than your singing”

“Sod off. Next script?”

“Please baby. This one’s hopeless”

. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please gods - no Zep biopic... 
> 
> Well imo it’s never going to happen due to the jimbert. Sighs of relief all round. Robert Plant cannot be cast.
> 
> If you don’t know JP and RP’s own story of their meeting? It’s like a cross between Cinderella and Baby Jesus.


	13. from the door comes Satan’s daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 13 prompt - Music
> 
> Rating - general 
> 
> This is a Lovechild story.

“JONES! are you in there?”

“I’m right here Page. Keep your hair on.”

Jimmy tosses his exquisite burnt mocha tresses and glares. 

“Noel has accidentally imprisoned himself in his playroom”

“ _his_ playroom?”

“why else do you think we have a _playroom_. Honestly John” Jimmy flusters coquettishly “The _dungeon_ is up in the attic.”

“I’m sure he will emerge in due course.”

“He’s a toddler. He’s being exposed to malign influences. Demonic emanations. Listen!”

“That’s Supertramp”

“ROBERT’s in there?” Jimmy rattles the door handle with increased urgency”

“No. The music is Supertramp”

“That? That’s MUSIC?” 

Jimmy faints like a Victorian consumptive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Supertramp - nor do I wish to malign their great body of work. Like many a Lovechild story this started as a joke on tumblr with @M-Faithfull the bad librarian of House of Riot.
> 
> Noel of course was not in any true peril because Uncle Nanny Bonzo was in the playroom with him all along.


	14. lost Lenore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 14 prompt - Metamorphosis 
> 
> Rating - General
> 
> This is a lovechild story
> 
> Ms F, Pa, Raven, and Dadi are at the Library...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be fair this one does not make much sense unless you know The Metamorphosis by Kafka; The Raven by Poe; a bit of British folkrock such as Crazy Man Michael by Fairport Convention - and the rest of the lovechild stories. That said, here it is anyway.

“One morning, as Raven T Shelby was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into a monstrous human.” you tease.

“That’s clever Grace. A little too clever” menaces Raven, flexing his claws like a butcher with a filleting knife.

“Nah Ms F” Robert tickles Raven under the chin. “Ees really a sweet maiden. If I kiss him, he will be released from his enchantment.”

“That won’t be necessary”Raven flusters. Preening his chest feathers.

“During metamorphosis one’s internal organs entirely liquify ” Jimmy joins in. 

“Thank you, James” you say. And quickly change the subject.


	15. might call this one Coffee for Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 15 Prompt - Coffee Shop AU
> 
> Rating: General
> 
> So I generally hate to take Zep out of the band or at least the music business - but I thought I would drabble a real AU and sex swap as well... it's still 1968 though (even if the Jimbert is Jenbin)  
> London

Page can be hard to handle, Robin thinks, but she wants to impress her anyway.

There is something about how _much _Page expects that makes Rob’s belly flip. So she smiles at the customers, playing blonde, sticking out her chest. Sex sells, even at the coffee bar. The customers start changing. Mods and hippies, poets and freaks. Cashing-up, the roll of notes is fatter every night.__

____

____

Page set up the bar with her own bread, but she says they can become a collective if things work out. Rob doesn’t care. She just wants to be near her. Watching her ambition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw Page is her last name - Jenny Page, Robin Plant  
> She just has that last name sort of effect on people.  
> They look pretty much exactly the same except Robin has shorter hair ;) and is a lil bit more butch when she's off duty.


	16. Listed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 16 prompt - History  
> Rating - General 
> 
> Tower House; London. 2006.

You were here so rarely. Usually for forms sake.But as you once said of me, something of you lingers on. The Sun and Moon in the Hall, each new morning, remind me.

The celling depicts the constellations when Burgess moved here. You were not with me, the first evening I stood here in this soft light. I could feel your fingertip bruises on my hip bones.

Before I bought back the bed, you made love to me on the floor in the Mermaid room. I was lost in the star mirrors above me. This house is full of ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am grateful to this 2018 article by Annalisa Barbieri about JP’s conservation of Tower House, and the house itself. 
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/08/stairway-to-heaven-jimmy-page-castle-is-his-home-led-zeppelin?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
> 
> In the story Jimmy has been listening to Robert’s cover of Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley | 2006 | Dreamland


	17. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 17 prompt - cooking
> 
> Rating - mature (cn drug use)

“Can you cook?” She asks.

Of course he can. He can do pretty much everything himself, but his time is precious. This is why G brings in staff for him. It’s not a question of competence. He’s always been a quick study. A technical man.

He takes the silver spoon. Measures his ingredients. It’s basic chemistry. Water. Heat. A saturated solution. She makes him uncomfortable. Her eyes shaded by the brim of her hat like the witch in Oz.

He stirs the tiny crucible. Sees the glint as the first crystal forms. Transformation. He hopes they bring him someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At one point Zeppelin flew in a new drug dealer and she arrived in a big hat with a veil. I imagine her as a sort of reverse Mary Poppins. (See Bring it On Home - Mark Blake) 
> 
> JP is famous for his heroin use but cocaine was a big part of the band’s drug culture. He’s making freebase here, which is something people used to do themselves before pre-prepared crack cocaine became more of a product. There is a knack to it. I imagined Jimmy applying his habit for detail and self reliance to his drug use as much as to anything else.


	18. Greeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 18 Prompt - Myths
> 
> Rating - General
> 
> 2020 - A barn. A pile of old books.

“This one says the crew lost you and you were found rolled up inside your own bolster”

“Clive. I think.”

“You sure Jimmylove? I mean you were quite, umm, _slight_. In ‘77”

“Sod off. Sounds like one of G’s though. Ok. First time you met G you told him you were in love with two sisters?”

“Bless him. Yeah that was his. So, did you actually tell him, or did he guess?”

“I told him. After Pasadena. Said he knew before we did.”

“Ok, your second room was to avoid Bonzo?”

“That one’s mine.”

“Not your most convincing work.”

“No.”


	19. untitled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 19 prompt - de-aging  
> Rating - general
> 
> 2020 - Just talking. Like they do.

“If you had one magick night with me as I was then, would you take it?”

“Jimmylove, I don’t want anyone but you, old fox.”

“I was... beautiful.”

“You were so pretty. Too pretty, really. You’re beautiful now. You didn’t like yourself. You were hard on your body. You were hard to, erm, handle.”

“Ha. I’d take a night with you in ‘73”

“I know.”

“You’re not mad?”

“He’s not my rival. That kid. He can fuck for England, but he can’t move you like I can.”

“Really?”

“Keep your eyes open honey.”

“Sure baby. I mean, my old man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With Jimbert I have a squick about de-aging so I’m not going to be actually doing it to them any time soon. I write them AU as kids but the idea of taking them backwards with their canon memories intact is not for me. Or Robert either in this drabble.


	20. Villa Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 20 Prompt - loss  
> Rating - General 
> 
> 1998 - Birmingham

Robert is inconsolable. Half drunk. Belligerent. Half sober with grief. Jimmy’s never seen him like this. 

“This dream is over. I can’t take another nineteen years of hurt. You never understand how deep this goes, Jimmy. You’ve never understood.”

Jimmy is bewildered. Two days ago Robert was strutting in leathers, growling above him in their hotel room. Glowing. Now he is this sad middle-aged bloke in orange nylon. Jimmy puts a consoling hand to Robert’s shoulder.

“You may still advance into the Premiership, baby.” Jimmy tries, biting his lip.

Robert’s voice catches. “Never gonna happen.”

Then he’s crying again. Lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday Robert Anthony Plant 20th August 2020. 
> 
> I know how much you love Wolves and this is the nearest they got to the cup finals in your time in their fandom (so far. Though they got near again this year) I hope you were duly consoled. At least in time. 
> 
> btw The famous TFI Friday interview ‘Old men do it better’ went out live just before the Wolves vs Arsenal FA semi final on 5th April. I’m presuming you were at the match at neutral Villa Park. I hope Jimmy was waiting to pick up your pieces.


	21. Somebody to Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 21 prompt - family
> 
> Rating - universal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lovechild story. So you might need to read about how baby Noel got born if you do not know already. Lovechild stories are written for House of Riot LZ fandom on tumblr - Darlene is apparently the name of Robert’s goat and goats are sort of a HoR mascot. Baby Noel’s best friend is Russell, who is one of Darlene’s kids. He’s the one in those iconic pictures. Yknow?

“Uncle Bon-Bon, are you my mum?”

“Why d’you arsk, my lovely?”

“Darlene is mum of Russell, an Bob, an Sandy, an Grace, an Jimmyhendrix, an Roger, an Joni.”

“Well Dadi is yor mom. Eee popped you out, see. He hatched you.”

“Like Waven?”

“Int nobody like Raven, Nowel.”

“Pa is snuggly. He got silky hair an lullabies an footie. Pa does hugging. Dadi got crinkly smile eyes, an smell like magic an flowers. Dadi’s tummy is bony. _Your_ tummy is lovely Bon-Bon”

“We is all your mom Nowel. Weall love _you_ best.”

“Better than Hello Kitty?”

“Better than anyfink”


	22. I got those dead parrot blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 22 prompt - Pet shop AU  
> Rating - General

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble references Monty Plython’s ‘Dead Parrot sketch’. Zeppelin and crew were very fond of Python and other surreal comedy if the 70s. Zep, I recently found out, even funded one of Python’s films.

“Ello Miss”

“What do you mean miss?” huffs Robert

“I’m sorry, I have a cold” sniffs Jimmy “I wish to make a complaint”

“Ah yes, the Norwegian Blue “What’s wrong with it?”

“I’m closing for lunch”

“Eh?”

“The line. You missed one, baby”

“Oh right. Sorry. I wish we sold exotic pets. Today I’ve shifted three sacks of dog biscuits, and a hamster”

“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.”

“We’re not lost though. We’ve got each other, Jimmylove.”

“It’s Pink Floyd”

“Eh?”

“Pop music.”

“Oh? not really my thing”

“Good job. You sing like a dead parrot.”


	23. Nobody’s fault but mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 23 prompt - Poison
> 
> rating - mature
> 
> 1994

He doesn’t want to feel it anymore. He feels infected. Feverish. Jealousy was always his weakness.

“Ask me”

Fuck. Like the very first time. Like every time. In his veins and moving towards his heart. He is paralysed. Heal me. Jimmy, heal me. He cannot speak.

Jimmy is close. So close. Waiting. Robert feels like talking in tongues but he’s biting it back. All the venomous things he has said, recanted. They have poisoned him. His mouth is full of bitterness.

“Ask me. You need this, baby”

He’s right. Always right in the end. Jimmylove. His Jimmylove.

“Please. Suck it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is about Robert coming back to Jimmy after David Coverdale (I’d say long suffering David Coverdale, but it wasn’t long). It’s a long story though.


	24. Dawning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 24 Prompt - True Love’s Kiss
> 
> Rating - explicit

Robert comes in his mouth. It feels like a spell breaking. If he wasn’t already on his knees, he would fall to them. The sound Robert is making. An enchantment.

Jimmy pulls himself up. Finds Robert’s mouth. He’s wanted to kiss him for months, has wanted to be tender. Instead he has made him crawl. Prince of Cool. Wicked Witch. Scared shitless of the fairytales in Robert’s eyes, he has drawn a chalk circle and hidden inside.

He kisses Robert and wakes; the ice-shard in his heart melting; he takes human form. True love.

“Shsssh” he says

Then disappears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble refers to my story Push Push


	25. We always had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 25 prompt - Drop  
> Rating - general

Needle in the groove. Your voice. You say one can hear pain in it. I don’t remember it like that.

Leaning out over the edge. Sheer drop. Your hands round my waist. Slippery with sweat. Leaning too far. Vast sky. The air a little thin, or maybe that was because of how I felt about you in that moment. I thought if we die now it would be perfect. You pull me back and I’m falling into your eyes instead.

If I had made you stay. If I had kept you safe. In Cefalù they were afraid to tell me.


	26. Penchant for absinthe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 26 prompt - Summer Vacation  
> Rating - mature
> 
> Dominica - February 1975

Robert slides his hand over the place where Jimmy was sleeping. The sheet still slightly damp with his sweat. Their summer of love. He imagines running his hand slowly between Jimmy’s thighs again, as the light burns round the edges of the curtain. Tasting rum and wormwood on his tongue. Lips numbed with lust and unfamiliar tastes. Cilantro with thyme. He imagines resting all his weight on him, the sweat pooling between them. Lazily fucking him. Being fucked. Jimmy with tan marks from his tiny speedo.

Instead it’s really Febuary and he’s gone to play cricket with that awful poet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In between the first and second legs of the US tour in early 1975 Robert went on holiday with Jimmy to Dominica. Jimmy says they went to meet Beat Poet Royston Ellis but I feel Robert had other ideas.   
> I apologise for using Robert to self insert my disregard for Ellis’ work - but if you want to listen to him reciting in 1963 for the one minute kid Jimmy plays guitar in the background. Well I warn you, you will not get those minutes back.


	27. Won’t go to bed till

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 27 prompt - Dream
> 
> Rating - General
> 
> songfic
> 
> 2020

“Dorris Day?”

“ _I was not brought up that way..._ ”

“What?”

“It’s a Grease reference.”

“...”

“You never saw Grease?”

“It was a difficult year for... anyway”

“It’s beautiful. Listen.”

“Who wrote this originally?”

“Gus Khan. Jimmylove. Listen.”

“Didn’t Cass do this too. And Ella?”

“ _Stars fading but I linger on, dear -_

 _Still craving your kiss... longing to linger till dawn..._ ”

“Yes. It’s a good arrangement.”

“Do I have to ask you?”

“Yes baby”

“Ah”

“...”

“You’re still my dream. Jimmy. Always were.”

“...”

“Kiss me?”

“ _While I'm alone and blue as can be_ ”

“So, You do know -“

“ _Dream a little dream, of me_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream a little dream of me | Andre; Schwandt; Khan | 1931
> 
> Look at me I’m Sandra Dee | Jacobs; Casey | Grease [Movie] | (1971) 1978


	28. Give me your tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 28 prompt - fantasy  
> Rating - general
> 
> 2017

He makes things with his hands. Small things, boxes, wooden bowls. Out in their studio where Jimmy paints watercolours in the better light of the picture window. Jimmy taught art at the grammar school, until they retired. Robert worked for John’s building firm. They moved here after they married.

A small ceremony up on the hill,under the white oak. Like a lot of older men who had been together a long time before the law changed. His four kids. Jimmy’s brood. Their ex-wives. The guys he sings with in the pub on the weekends. A life filled with family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same sex marriage became law in England and Wales in 2013 and the first ceremonies happened in the summer of 2014 - 46 years after Robert Plant met Jimmy Page. Only six years since I write this in 2020. 
> 
> Many people now seem to scoff at the idea, were my stories to be true, that Robert and Jimmy would not be completely happy to be ‘out’ to the world about their relationship. 
> 
> You tell me. 
> 
> The song title is from  
> the lyrics of Tim Hardin’s - If I Were A Carpenter - which RP covered on his 1993 Fate of Nations.


	29. Shalalaladingdong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 29 prompt - High School AU  
> Rating - general
> 
> 1973

“Tell us about it. Stud” Robert says.

His pants are so tight he thinks he might pass out. Jonesy does a patronising nod, and Robert remembers to grind his fag under the heel of his star boot. He cocks a hip in Jimmy’s direction. Shakes out his hair. The other kids gasp. The awkward bambi giraffe transformed into this vision of sex.

“You better shape up. Cause I need a man. And my heart is set on you.” Jimmy answers.

It’s not quite the reaction Robert had in mind, but it’s electrifying.

“You’re the one that I want” he says

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue borrowed from Grease the musical - Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey 1971 - and attitude all from Olivia Newton John Grease the movie 1978 - you know they sewed her into those pants.


	30. Band of Joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 30 prompt - Joy  
> Rating general (cn bereavement) 
> 
> 1981

You took all the joy with you.

What little was left.

Wherever you are, I hope you know I don’t resent that.

They wouldn’t let me see you. Your body.

As we drove north all I could see was that kid who knew no-one would best him. Especially me.

You said I would be better with you.

You were right. I will never be that good again. I swear to you. You were always our heartbeat. My blood brother. Those last three years you guarded my heart better than your own. If you see my boy, John. Look after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Bonham played in two bands with Robert Plant before Zeppelin. Crawling King Snakes - Who Bonham saw and told Robert they would be better with him as their drummer (and with whom Bonham would site his kit far forward to make it hard for RP to stand in front of him to sing) - and later Band of Joy.  
> RP has used the name Band of Joy with several lineups after Zeppelin - I feel in tribute to his lost friend.
> 
> One of my favourite RP quotes is “John Bonham was the greatest drummer in the world - I know because he told me so” 
> 
> John Bonham died in Jimmy Page’s house and was found by sound tech Benji Le Fevre. According to Bring it On Home, a biography of Peter Grant, Robert was persuaded by G and others not to see John’s body. He and Benji then drove to the midlands to tell Bonham’s widow Pat Bonham of her husband’s passing before the press or anyone else told her. 
> 
> I am one of many people who feel RP was never happy to reform Zeppelin without Bonham through a deep loyalty going back to their teen years.


	31. Ever Truly (And you know)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 31 prompt - there was only one bed
> 
> rating - universal
> 
> September 2020*

There is only one bed so he lies on it. His hip is painful after the climb. He has said he will wait three days.

There’s only one bed because he needs it to be this way. No secret rooms. No adjoining suites.

He checks his phone. This place is no longer as far away as it was. Summer is no longer eternal. He’s an old man who travels slowly. They both are. Six years is a long time to wait.

There’s only one bed. Only one reason to come knocking. Robert opens the door, and his heart.

“Hello baby”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Inshallah


End file.
